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By: Dr. Elizabeth Craig | December 8, 2014

Emergency or not…..

The most frequent after hour’s calls that I get as a dentist are from concerned mothers. Junior just fell in the bathtub and hit his mouth or maybe junior was wrestling with a friend took an elbow to the teeth. I’ve heard many variations of this story. They are kids and as hard as we try cannot keep them in an injury free bubble! The purpose of this blog is to give those mothers who are wondering if it is worth giving me a call that night or weekend or if they should just wait until the office is open to be seen.

Call me after hours if…

The tooth is completely knocked out

It is half out, visibly moved from its’ original position (not just a little…you will KNOW not just think)

If it is broken and you see a red or pink piece of tissue inside the tooth (not just some blood around it)

If any of these things have happened I am probably going to want to meet you at the office for a look.

The gums and lips are very vascular, which means they have a lot of blood vessels in them. This is a good thing because they heal very quickly. However, it means these injuries bleed and swell a lot! A chipped tooth and a bloody lip is not necessarily an emergency that needs to be seen Saturday night at 11pm. Most of the time we have to wait and see how things are going to heal up and I have no immediate answers anyway.

When in doubt give me a call. I am happy to help. Most of the time I find that when the bloody lip is cleared up and Junior calms down a little bit it isn’t as bad as we fear!